Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the managing and providing services in health care facilities. More particularly, aspects of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods for assigning and directing personnel and managing workflow in health care facilities.
Description of the Related Art
Caring for patients in health care facilities requires a substantial amount of medical and non-medical services. In addition to medical staff, many other members of a health care facility's staff provide services to attend to the needs of patients in the facility and to maintain the facility in continuous operation. Such services include transportation, housekeeping, environmental services (“EVS”), bed management, facilities management, admission/discharge/transfer administration, security, and human resources.
In a health care facility setting, some services will be designated as “stat”, or urgent. Typically, a stat designation is made for an action that must be taken promptly in order to meet the urgent needs of a patient or to keep the facility operating at full capacity. From the standpoint of an employee, responding to stat requests may be more stressful than ordinary requests because the employee is under more pressure to complete the task quickly. In many cases, a stat request may be associated with an urgent medical situation, such as cardiac arrest or another emergency situation.
In many health care facilities, computer systems are used to help manage services provided to patients. In some health care facilities, requests for some services, such as bed cleaning or patient transport, are triggered by messages from an Admission Discharge Transfer (“ADT”) system. For example, a message from an ADT system that a patient has just been discharged from the room may trigger a bed cleaning request.
Some existing computer systems for managing services in health care facilities, such as services for transport of patients or equipment, may not assign tasks or use the resources available in the facility an efficient or timely manner. For example, some computer systems may make assignments and communicate information in a manner that results in too many or too few resources being placed on given task, or in a disproportionate burden being borne by some staff members of the facility.